You Really, Really Like Me!

Jefferson Smith, Eileen Brady and Charlie Hales hope
you’ll “like” them. Brady also wants you to see pictures of her family
and eavesdrop as she says “I love you” to her son. Smith weighs in on
the Trail Blazers and has a Twitter account for his dog, George Bailey.

Facebook, Twitter and
YouTube have become mandatory for modern campaigns: updating supporters
and shaping the candidate’s image with a self-consciously natural
intimacy.

In the race for Portland mayor, Brady and Smith have both done well in connecting through social media.

Natalie Sept, Brady’s
campaign manager, says the campaign wants to use social media to help
Brady appear accessible—and, she adds, Brady writes her own posts and
tweets.

“Anything from Eileen is authentically from her,” Sept says.

Hales, meanwhile, has
a Facebook page and Twitter account whose missives are far from habit
forming. (He’s the only candidate on Google Plus, which he doesn’t use
much.) He’s also running a more traditional campaign, knocking on
thousands of doors.

Campaign Manager
Jessica Moskovitz acknowledges a generational gap in Hales’ target
audience: Older voters engage early on, she says, and are less familiar
with Facebook, Twitter and YouTube.

“We don’t want voters to have to learn a new technology to talk to us,” Moskovitz says.